Boom!

I'm watching a half-hour program on the progression of Madden Football to the next-gen consoles and it's getting to be pretty scary.

The horrors and twisted beauty of 300 pounds of meat springing to life combined with every grunt... Yeah, John's got a hard road getting out of bed these days.

Also, there's apparently a plan to hire ex-players and pro wrestlers to come to your house every Sunday and beat the living piss out of you to make the game stick with you all week.

Did you know they're creating animations for blades of grass now?

Or that the audio contains footstep and breathing tracks?

And that they change the sounds of rain depending if you're running or standing?

I was considering picking up a copy now that baseball season is over, but seeing this I can't see how I've managed to live this long without an XBox 360. I mean, really - are you aware of how empty I feel right now?

Considering this game and car commercials are my only connections to popular music these days, I'm pretty much forced to buy this game soon, but the chance to see a fully animated version of David Carr's face as it gets stuffed inside his anus 15 times a game because the Texans management has no business running an NFL team is almost too much to resist.

I can almost smell the virtual Ben-Gay and it's calling my name.

(Photo from MLV.com)